The account of conditions on Manus Island by Behrouz Boochani (“Breaking camp”, July 29-August 4) shows the cruelty and vicious treatment of the refugees by the Australian government. They are being driven to despair by various deprivations and by thrusting them into dangerous situations among the local inhabitants of Manus. The aim must be to force refugees to return to great danger and persecution in the countries from which they fled. The prospect of a life in the United States seems unlikely. These men are our responsibility. When compared with the problems and numbers faced by nations overseas, our problem is minuscule and could be solved by the stroke of a pen. The mental and physical damage we have inflicted on people seeking refuge is a crime against humanity. Surely Australians can do better.

– Gael Barrett, North Balwyn, Vic

Noam Chomsky’s telling words

Thank you again for giving Behrouz Boochani a voice from Manus. It is up to us to pile on the pressure to stop this horror. The forced transfer of these innocent men to dangerous East Lorengau is the latest bullying. We must make our voices heard, through our unions, professional organisations, religious institutions and political parties. I recently wrote to Insiders on the weak interviewing of Bill Shorten. If he cared about deaths at sea, he would be advocating the safe transport of refugees from Indonesia. But he was not challenged on his crocodile tears. We are holding hostages. Both parties are culpable. As if for the first time, I discovered these words on the wall of Sydney’s Edmund Rice Centre, dating from 2013:

“Message to Australia from Noam Chomsky, The true measure of the moral level of a society is how it treats the most vulnerable people. Few are as vulnerable as those who have fled to Australia in terror and are locked away without charge, their terrible fate veiled in secrecy. We may not be able to do much, beyond lamenting, about North Korean prisons. But we can do a great deal about severe human rights violations right within reach.”

– Stephen Langford, Paddington, NSW

Community voices are being ignored

Defining what constitutes editorial opinion versus balanced reporting is clearly important when we are awash with information (Santilla Chingaipe, “Breaking news”, July 29-August 4). The rise of editorialising, though, may be a symptom of a deeper malaise. Might it not parallel community feelings of disempowerment when leadership fails and attacks on the media increase? Do we look for opinion to be expressed knowing community voices are silenced by sophistry in the first instance precisely because we sense the frustrating and increasing dismissal by the political class of community sentiment? Nowhere is this more stark than in your article on the impending closure of the Manus detention camps. The notion that stopping the deaths at sea of legitimate refugees justifies torture can no longer be seen as anything other than the political lie it always was. That community and international outrage is blithely dismissed is alarming in itself. That politicians are unwilling to calm the fears of those who see this barbarism as unnecessary speaks to an absence of conviction politics, an absence of leadership. If those community voices are dismissed, and leaders won’t hear, is it surprising we have increasingly polarising editorialising?

– Gil Anaf, Norwood, SA

The other income splitting

“It hasn’t got worse – inequality – it’s actually gotten better.” This comment by Treasurer Scott Morrison (Karen Middleton, “Loose lips shift rates”, July 29-August 4), together with Andrew Laming’s definition of inequality as “staring over the fence and noticing another guy has got a jet ski and you don’t”, is an insult. It is an insult to the many in the lower end of the income and wealth distribution cycle who have increasingly become sidelined by the resultant power differential. Perhaps, ironically, it is best left to one of the world’s key money managers to provide a more honest appraisal. IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, in 2014, spoke of the “dark shadow” of rising income inequality (that includes Australia). “Excessive inequality makes capitalism less inclusive. It hinders people from participating fully and developing their potential.” Ultimately, she said, this “means addressing extreme income disparity”.

– Ted Noon, Lugarno, NSW

News Corp’s Catholic tastes

I hope Mike Seccombe’s article (“How the church is splitting Liberals”, July 22-28) was widely read, and he kept it razor-sharp by not digressing into other areas of Catholic-reactionary influence, so I’ll do it for him. The Australian published the following clanger in its May 5 editorial, in relation to Catholic school funding: “Unlike Coalition leaders such as Sir Robert Menzies, John Howard and Malcolm Fraser, Mr Turnbull, a Catholic convert, does not understand the tribe he joined or its culture and values.” The gist is that Turnbull’s Gonski 2.0 is an abhorrent waste of money but, by the way, Catholic schools might have to jack up their fees because their massive funding increase via Gonski 2.0 is not quite as massive as they would’ve liked. I sent a letter suggesting The Australian try crunching the numbers instead of the wafers, which was unsurprisingly spiked.

– Russell Graham, Highton, Vic

Lighten up

Oh, come on, Des (Des Files, Letters, July 29-August 4). Keep things in perspective. The Gadfly is the Gadfly. Read him if you are after some humour, some satire. You will find the more serious journalistic articles of very high calibre towards the front of The Saturday Paper. I’m sad to say that you, along with Father Gerard H, just don’t get it.

Karen Middleton
The government ignored security agency advice on amendments to the medivac bill, allowing it to accuse Labor of undermining border security.Pezzullo’s Monday evidence suggests the government was alerted to the repatriation issue well before Labor’s amendments were drafted and it did not act.

Jenny Valentish
Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Royce Kurmelovs
While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Katherine Gillespie
Amid the spectacularly divisive response to Kristen Roupenian’s short story about a relationship gone wrong, the author’s conception of “Cat Person” as horror fiction was often overlooked. Here, she talks about reasserting her genre credentials with the release of her debut collection. “The temptation would be to turn the book into 11 stories about dating from the perspective of young women. So I was grateful that editors recognised it was a weird, dark collection of essentially horror stories. They let it be what it was.”

Jennifer Robinson
Despite narrow legal grounds for concealing documents under our freedom of information laws, government agencies routinely refuse to release them. Appeals are long and costly. Final decisions may take years and challenging decisions to refuse access to documents – as in this case – can run to many, many thousands of dollars. The cost is too high for most, and so the information remains hidden and unpublished.

Paul Bongiorno
No longer confident it controls the parliament of Australia, the Morrison government has shut it down for the next six weeks. And no wonder: it is reeling from revelations of cronyism, incompetence and profligate, unaccountable spending. Scott Morrison’s only defence was to accuse Labor of having its head in the “chum bucket”. If he is right, the bucket is his and he will have to do a lot of hard work to expunge the stench before the May election.

Ladislaus Meissner, also known as Joe Meissner, of “Love Boat” notoriety has, after a decent interval, resurfaced. Joe has moved on from his days in the 1980s as secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and former world karate champion when his putt-putt, the Kanzen, hosted riotous onboard parties, where politicians mingled with even shadier figures. Virginia Perger, a sex worker, said she had slept with the adorable Graham Richardson on board the Kanzen only to withdraw her statement, after much thought.

Perhaps once the Paladin contract story could have toppled a minister. This week, it was almost overshadowed by a parade of other scandals – the 2000 Centrelink robocall deaths; the Helloworld travel scandal; the revelation both Michael Keenan and Michaelia Cash refused to give witness statements to the Australian Federal Police over the Australian Workers’ Union raid tipoffs; the apparent leaking of security advice to The Australian, which was then misrepresented.

As the Federal Court prepares to make a ruling on the AWU raids, and it emerges Michaelia Cash refused to give a statement to the federal police over her office’s involvement, The Saturday Paper reviews the minister’s position to date.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this weekoffers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Peter Hanlon
Trainer Darren Weir’s fall from grace over the possession of electronic shock devices has stunned horse-racing enthusiasts both here and overseas. But could it help efforts to clean up the sport?

Karen Middleton
The government ignored security agency advice on amendments to the medivac bill, allowing it to accuse Labor of undermining border security.Pezzullo’s Monday evidence suggests the government was alerted to the repatriation issue well before Labor’s amendments were drafted and it did not act.

Jenny Valentish
Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Royce Kurmelovs
While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Katherine Gillespie
Amid the spectacularly divisive response to Kristen Roupenian’s short story about a relationship gone wrong, the author’s conception of “Cat Person” as horror fiction was often overlooked. Here, she talks about reasserting her genre credentials with the release of her debut collection. “The temptation would be to turn the book into 11 stories about dating from the perspective of young women. So I was grateful that editors recognised it was a weird, dark collection of essentially horror stories. They let it be what it was.”

Jennifer Robinson
Despite narrow legal grounds for concealing documents under our freedom of information laws, government agencies routinely refuse to release them. Appeals are long and costly. Final decisions may take years and challenging decisions to refuse access to documents – as in this case – can run to many, many thousands of dollars. The cost is too high for most, and so the information remains hidden and unpublished.

Paul Bongiorno
No longer confident it controls the parliament of Australia, the Morrison government has shut it down for the next six weeks. And no wonder: it is reeling from revelations of cronyism, incompetence and profligate, unaccountable spending. Scott Morrison’s only defence was to accuse Labor of having its head in the “chum bucket”. If he is right, the bucket is his and he will have to do a lot of hard work to expunge the stench before the May election.

Ladislaus Meissner, also known as Joe Meissner, of “Love Boat” notoriety has, after a decent interval, resurfaced. Joe has moved on from his days in the 1980s as secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and former world karate champion when his putt-putt, the Kanzen, hosted riotous onboard parties, where politicians mingled with even shadier figures. Virginia Perger, a sex worker, said she had slept with the adorable Graham Richardson on board the Kanzen only to withdraw her statement, after much thought.

Perhaps once the Paladin contract story could have toppled a minister. This week, it was almost overshadowed by a parade of other scandals – the 2000 Centrelink robocall deaths; the Helloworld travel scandal; the revelation both Michael Keenan and Michaelia Cash refused to give witness statements to the Australian Federal Police over the Australian Workers’ Union raid tipoffs; the apparent leaking of security advice to The Australian, which was then misrepresented.

As the Federal Court prepares to make a ruling on the AWU raids, and it emerges Michaelia Cash refused to give a statement to the federal police over her office’s involvement, The Saturday Paper reviews the minister’s position to date.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this weekoffers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Peter Hanlon
Trainer Darren Weir’s fall from grace over the possession of electronic shock devices has stunned horse-racing enthusiasts both here and overseas. But could it help efforts to clean up the sport?